Major hotel/entertainment venue unveiled

The annual Re/Max Real Estate Symposium last Thursday generated a little more excitement than usual when developer Kent Nixon announced plans for a major hotel and retail center in Osage Beach.

Dan Field Lake Media Reporter

The annual Re/Max Real Estate Symposium last Thursday generated a little more excitement than usual when developer Kent Nixon announced plans for a major hotel and retail center in Osage Beach.

Nixon said he plans to build Towne Harbor on the former Kalfran Resort property off Jeffries Road at about the 19.5 miler marker of the Main Channel. The major stumbling block, he said, was the success of a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) application he has yet to file with the city of Osage Beach.

Nixon said his vision is for an “entertainment district” that would include two hotels, a boardwalk of retail shops, restaurants and bars and other facilities. It would be built in two phases, with the first getting underway by next summer.

“It all depends on the success of the TIF application,” he said. “There won’t be anything quite like this at the lake.”

Nixon plans to have the letters of intent ready by the end of the year and begin the TIF application process at the beginning of 2014.

The project would be the first major hotel resort/entertainment center at the lake since Tan-Tar-A and the Lodge of Four Seasons were built. A similar hotel resort planned by John Q Hammons near the Grand Glaize Bridge failed to materialize several years ago after its TIF application was delayed by a lawsuit, followed by Hammons’ poor health and eventual death.

Nixon said the entire project would take about four years to complete, with the first phase finished about two years after a TIF application is approved by the city of Osage Beach. One of the hotels would be located on the water, while the other would be closer to the Osage Beach Expressway.

Nixon said he decided to unveil the plan here because the entertainment and hotel segment of the market is beginning to show some age.

“The public expects a lot, and we seen an opportunity to create a game changer, to swing the lake’s pendulum in the proper direction,” he explained.

“The lake needs to work on increasing its static population so it doesn’t have to rely on only seven or eight months of income,” he said. “It needs to be more of a year-round retail center.

While the city of Osage Beach is aware of the development, there has not been an application for a TIF filed.

City Planner Cary Patterson said Nixon has visited with the city but so far, there has not been any development plans filed with Osage Beach.

Zoning is not an issue for the proposed development. The current zoning would allow for a development of this type, he said.

The next step would include filing the TIF application, along with the $15,000 fee and letters of intent from retailers interested in locating in the proposed development area.

Once that is accomplished, the application would be turned over to the city’s TIF Commission for consideration.

If the TIF plan for the development were to be approved, it would become the fourth district in Osage Beach. The three existing TIF districts are Prewitt's Pointe, Dierberg's Lakeview Pointe, and the undeveloped property on the Grand Glaize Arm owned by the John Q. Hammons development group.

What is a TIF?

Tax Increment Financing provides local tax financial assistance for the redevelopment of designated economically depressed areas. TIF allows the use of a portion of certain new local tax revenues generated for a limited number of years in the redevelopment area to help pay for the redevelopment.